Vertex 3 Pro

For the past six months I've been working on research and testing for the next major AnandTech SSD article. I figured I had enough time to line up its release with the first samples of the next-generation of high end SSDs. After all, it seems like everyone was taking longer than expected to bring out their next-generation controllers. I should've known better.
At CES this year we had functional next-generation SSDs based on Marvell and SandForce controllers. The latter was actually performing pretty close to expectations from final hardware. Although I was told that drives wouldn't be shipping until mid-Q2, it was clear that preview hardware was imminent. It was the timing that I couldn't predict.
A week ago, two days before I hopped on a...